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| Diocese of Palm Beach Offering Training to Stop Sex Abuse By Lois K. Solomon South Florida Sun-Sentinel May 19, 2008 http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/palmbeach/sfl-flpchildren0519pnmay19,0,5236325.story WEST BOCA - When a student at St. John the Evangelist Church did not want to shake Kit Johansen's hand, Johansen wasn't offended, she was impressed. Johansen, who runs the Diocese of Palm Beach's Office of Serving Children, was talking to St. John students and parents last week about appropriate and inappropriate touching by adults. Johansen put out her hand to introduce herself, but the girl declined to respond in kind. "She is being honest about the fact that she is uncomfortable," Johansen said. "We need to trust those instincts." Johansen is traveling around the five-county diocese's parishes to educate parents and children about who is allowed to touch them and how they should react if adults contact them in an undesired way. The diocese wants Catholic parents to know its priests and educators are as interested in children's safety as they are, Johansen said. Johansen's office, created six years ago in response to national and local priest molestation scandals, has been organizing meetings with parents, training educators to begin parish safety programs for children, creating an Internet safety campaign and talking to church administrators about their security policies. After many years of being asked what her office has accomplished since its creation, Johansen said it was time to raise the profile. Dioceses nationwide have created similar offices to set rules on appropriate contact with children and improve church security policies. The mandate came from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2002, after Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston admitted he shuffled the Rev. John Geoghan from parish to parish after he knew Geoghan had been accused of molesting children. The Diocese of Palm Beach had its own share of scandals at that time. Bishop Anthony J. O'Connell left in February 2002 after a former student disclosed abuse by him. The bishop before him, J. Keith Symons, resigned in 1998 after admitting he had molested five altar boys earlier in his career. In their 2002 Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, the bishops required that every diocese in the country create review boards to help bishops assess sexual abuse allegations and start programs for the safety of young parishioners. In the Diocese of Palm Beach, programs include fingerprinting every employee and volunteer in its 53 parishes and missions and requiring them to attend child-protection workshops. But David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said these efforts have little effect on top officials of the church, whom he believes are most responsible for cover-ups. "We have a lot of skepticism about these highly touted reforms," Clohessy said. "The people getting this training are not the problem. You have to monitor the actions of the hierarchy. It's like having speed limits with no cops." Teresa Kettelkamp, executive director of the bishops' Office of Child and Youth Protection in Washington, D.C., said the priests and bishops are taking the same training as the laity. Almost all the 195 dioceses in the country offered the seminars, she said. About 5.6 million of 5.8 million children who participate in church schools and programs also have been through the workshops, she said. Johansen's workshops offer some unorthodox suggestions about how children should handle high-pressure safety situations. In addition to recommending that children tell people who touch them to stop, Johansen said they should make lists of people who make them feel safe and people who make them uncomfortable and show the lists to their parents. They also should feel free to have their parents take the rap if they want to get their peers to stop pressuring them. "Blame your mother," Johansen said. "Your parents will come and get you out of any situation." Parent Lisa Goodman, who attended the St. John the Evangelist workshop, said she is thrilled the church is taking an active role in preventing abuse. She said she sought more information about how to detect whether her children have been touched improperly. She said people have wanted to hold her triplets, who are now in first grade, since they were babies. "They get so much attention," Goodman said. "We've had small conversations about what is improper, but I was looking for signs that it may have happened if they haven't told you." Johansen said she leaves details to the parents. "We're not here to do your job," which is to have frank conversations with children about permissible behaviors, she told the parents. "You can't keep them in a cocoon. You have to give them the skills so they know how to operate in the world." Lois Solomon can be reached at lsolomon@sun-sentinel.com or 561-243-6536. |
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